There have been moments in our lives when our jobs got the better of us. Some particular days or situations made us uncomfortable or angry. But if the prospect of going back to work makes you feel ill and disrupts your overall private life, then you are dealing with a hostile work environment. This means that a superior or co-worker repeatedly engages in damaging behavior that comes into conflict … [Read more...]

Most people see change models as circular. Since change is a constant element in a successful organization, its repeated forces are always in action. Three keys are essential to successfully manage change: empathy, communication, and participation.
Empathy
Empathy, the first key to successfully managing change, is crucial in obtaining information about who will be affected by a change and how … [Read more...]

Human Resource Development (HRD) is a practice that combines training, organizational development, and career development efforts to encourage improvement of individual, group, and organizational performance. Its purpose is to enhance employee performance/productivity, which leads to employee and customer satisfaction and an increase in the profitability of the organization.
When researching the … [Read more...]

Today’s organizations are increasingly recognizing the importance of developing their human resources. The training and development function within organizations is now popularly called human resource development (HRD). HRD coordinates the organization’s efforts to provide training and development experiences for its employees.
Strategic Business Partnerships
The success of strategically … [Read more...]

By Brad Minor, M.Ed. Candidate in Human Resource Development, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University
Sometimes what is best for a client in a consulting relationship is not doing exactly what the client asks of the consultant in the exact way the client wishes for it to be accomplished. Effective consulting sometimes means looking outside the scope of the presenting problem for answers that … [Read more...]

Shirley J. Caruso, Ed.D.
Consultants should be very upfront about their wants. All consultant wants are logical. Consultants shouldn’t dismiss a want as too small or too big. As consultants, we may not always receive all of our wants from our clients, but we may reach a comfortable negotiation on our wants and divide them into two categories: essential and desirable. It’s okay for … [Read more...]

Shirley J. Caruso, Ed.D.
Cross-functional teams consist of a group of people that hold different positions within and outside of an organization that are working to reach a common goal.
The members of a cross-functional team may include personnel from all departments within the organization including project management, accounting, estimating, IT, operations, marketing, HR, and administration … [Read more...]

Referrals from other departments
One way to gain recognition and trust is to gain buy-in on your services from one department and have that department act as your referral to other departments within the organization. An internal consultant can accumulate quite a portfolio of satisfied customers and proven results by taking this approach. If other departments can see the results first hand and … [Read more...]

According to Cannon, Griffith, and Guthrie (2006), “a group is a defined set of individuals who interact with each other for a common purpose” (p. 3). A group can be defined by the following characteristics and criteria:
It has the capability to outperform sets of individuals doing similar work.
It is able to make superior decisions because it draws on more information.
It is more … [Read more...]

The CEO of a general contractor attributes the high turnover rate of newly hired administrative assistants to their inability to learn construction terminology quickly enough to apply it to proposal writing. The new hires quickly fall behind in their work, and the estimators whom they assist are unable to satisfy the needs of potential and established clients. The general contractor (client) has … [Read more...]